Consequent upon examination of Representations received from organizations working for the welfare of the children with disabilities and minority institutions, a decision was taken to carry out certain amendments to the Right of Children to Free and compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Accordingly, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2010 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 16th April, 2010 incorporating the following amendments to the RTE Act.
A protocol amending the existing Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement was signed here today between Republic of India and Swiss Federal Council. The Signing ceremony was held at the Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi. The protocol was signed for the Republic of India by Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister while the Swiss Federal Council Foreign Minister, Ms. Micheline Calmy-Rey signed for the other side.
The Madras high court last week dismissed the writ petition of Infotech Software Dealers’ Association raising the question whether a software would amount to goods and if so, when it is supplied to a customer pursuant to the End User Licence Agreement (EULA), the transaction is liable to be treated as sale or service. It also raised the constitutional validity of the new provision in the Finance Act 2009,
The Supreme Court has held that voltage stabilisers are electronic items which attracted lesser sales tax. Dismissing a batch of appeals from Uttar Pradesh, Commissioner of Trade Tax vs Parikh Gramodyog Sansthan, the court ruled that stabilisers are not electric goods. A voltage stabiliser might have many components some of which use electricity. That cannot be the sole reason for classifying it as an electrical item, the judgment said.
The demand for electricity bill arrears cannot be raised once again against the buyer of an industrial unit which had cleared the dues, the Supreme Court ruled in the appeal case, Haryana State Electricity Board vs Hanuman Rice Mills. Hanuman mills had bought the Durga Rice Mills and had cleared the electricity bills due to the board.
If an arbitration agreement says that no interest would be payable for an award amount from the date when the cause of action arose and the date of the award, the court cannot order a party to pay interest, the Supreme Court clarified in the case, Sree Kamatchi Amman Constructions vs Divisional Railway Manager. In this case, the contract stated that no interest would be payable on amounts payable to the contractor.
The Supreme Court has declared that an application for settlement of an income tax case cannot be revised and the settlement commission has to go by the original application and annexure filed in the prescribed form. Revision of annexure tantamount to revision of application and cannot be allowed under the scheme of settlement in Chapter XIX-A of the Income Tax Act,
The government will lose over Rs 53,000 crore (Rs 530 billion) in tax revenue on account of the increase in exemption limits and tweaking of slabs in the Direct Taxes Code Bill, which will come into effect from April 1, 2012, a year behind the previous deadline.
The much-talked about Helium balloons for the opening and closing in ceremony of the Commonwealth Games will be exempted from customs duty. The Finance Ministry has withdrawn customs duty on the balloons, technically known as Aerostats, along with equipment used for their deployment, sources said.
Amid reported differences between the ministries of labour and finance, the former today asserted that the decision of EPFO trustees would be “final and supreme” on whether a portion of Rs 5 lakh crore of provident funds should be invested in stock markets.
